


fight this fight

by evilythedwarf



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Philinda Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 22:19:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8941609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilythedwarf/pseuds/evilythedwarf
Summary: He watches her. He pretends he doesn’t, and he walks around base ignoring the knowing looks his team sends his way, but they know he’s been watching her, and he knows they know, and he might even crack a smile when Daisy smirks and rolls her eyes at him and bumps her shoulder against his when they cross paths on the hallways. They know and he knows and even Melinda probably knows. [Post 4x08]





	

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the first half of S4. I got this prompt from angeperalta: "I don't deserve your love" for the Philinda Secret Santa, and it really really REALLY worked well with I think might happen after the whole May!Bot thing is dealt with.

He watches her.

He pretends he doesn’t, and he walks around base ignoring the knowing looks his team sends his way, but they know he’s been watching her, and he knows they know, and he might even crack a smile when Daisy smirks and rolls her eyes at him and bumps her shoulder against his when they cross paths on the hallways

They know and he knows and even Melinda probably knows.

But she won’t talk to him.

Won’t talk to him, won’t look at him, won’t even acknowledge his existence unless forced to do so by Mace, who refuses to accept that the two senior members of his star team are possibly not on the best terms at the moment. Mace, who thinks it’ll be good for morale to see them working together after The Incident.

(

“Dude walks in, starts screaming like crazy and then BOOM SHOOTS HER IN THE HEAD,” Senior Tech Analyst Vasquez explained to his captive audience during lunch the other day. Surprisingly, he got most of the details right, which could be due to the fact that he was, in fact, there when It happened.

“But she’s ok now?” an innocent member of the Vasquez’s division inquires. “I saw her earlier in Training Room C?”

“He shot her in the head. I saw it. Everyone saw it.”

)

Not Phil’s finest moment, even if there were extenuating circumstances.

Even if it wasn’t actually Melinda who got a bullet to the side of the head.

Everyone saw, and so now everyone knows the lengths he is willing to go for her, and how far he can fall when he thinks he’s lost her.

So, Phil watches her.

He sits in his office on the Zephyr and goes through hours of recorded footage. Melinda May sparing with Daisy, Melinda May doing tai chi, Melinda May eating breakfast. Melinda May walking around base and occasionally glancing up at the security cameras that she has to know he’s (via Daisy) tapped into and staring blankly at him through the screens.

May, no doubt about it.

Just like there had been no doubt for months before The Incident.

He’d been so sure. So damn sure.

Who else would have fought for him, who else would have gone to extremes, who else had the ability to read him like a book, look at him like he was the best man in the world and make him week at the knees at the same time.

So how could he not see?

His screens go black and he has about 30 seconds to worry before Daisy walks into his office, bypassing both his security system and his desire for privacy, and stands in front of his desk.

“No,” she says.

“I haven’t asked you anything yet.”

“Answer’s still no.”

He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back against his chair, and he takes a good look at her. She really does remind him of May, back in the day, when he could still talk to her without layers and layers of armor. When she wasn’t wrapped in Kevlar and stoicism.

He makes the mistake of flipping his eyes towards the empty screens, causing Daisy to sigh and lean forward against his desk.

“She’s not dead, you know?” she tells him.

“I know that.”

“Then why are you acting like she is?”

Her voice is steady and just this side of cheerful. She’s been putting herself back together, with no help from him at all, and he’s so proud of her.

She rolls her eyes at him, recognizing the soft eyed looked on his face, probably.

“Don’t get mushy now.”

“Daisy-”

“She’s not dead,” she repeats.

He presses the heel of his right hand against his eye and takes a deep breath.

“She doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“Have you actually tried?”

He hasn’t, not for a while.

Not since he showed her the LMD. That thing he thought was her.

(

“I’m so sorry,” he told her, for what seemed like the tenth time in the past five minutes but was probably the twentieth, because it was all he could think about, and all he could tell her. “I’m so sorry.”

She touched it, her hands steady as she traced the contours of the face. Phil remembered just how lifelike the skin had felt.

“I understand,” she said, and she left the room without looking at him.

)

“I won’t support your habit anymore,” Daisy warns him. She types up a few things and his screens come back to life, the SHIELD logo staring him in the face. “You’re cut off until you talk to her.”

She sits on the edge of the desk and looks down at him.

“I don’t know what to say,” he sighs.

“Guilt’s gonna eat you up Coulson, believe me.”

He looks at her, her bottom lip caught between her lips. She’s wringing her hands and for a moment all her confidence falls apart and she’s Skye again, the girl who lived in a van.

“Daisy,” he starts, but she stands up and starts walking away. She stops at the doorway but doesn’t turn around.

“I won’t let you do this,” she tells him before leaving.

He stays in his office for another half an hour; not out of stubbornness but because he needs to be sure his legs will hold him when he finally does stand up.

He walks out of the office, out of the Zephyr, and into the base proper, through several sets of sliding doors. And then he finds her, exactly where he knew she’d be.

Because he’s been watching her.

She’s serious and focused and completely beating the shit out of the punching bag in front of her, and she doesn’t stop when he sits on a bench not 6 feet away from her, and she doesn’t glance his way or acknowledge him in any way.

She’s recovered enough that he can no longer count the ribs on her abdomen and her punches pack some weight, but he already knew this. Her hair is up in a ponytail, longer than it’s been in probably decades, and every now and then she brushes it away from her face. Because an errant strand of hair is obviously distraction enough but him, sitting a few steps distance isn’t.

Also, there’s a new scar across her right temple.

(

“We found her! Coulson, we found her!”

“Is she ok? Mack, is she alive?”

There was a pause. A few seconds, most likely, but it seemed like hours, days, until he heard Mack’s voice again.

“We need med evac. Now!”

)

When she’s finished, she unwraps her hands and drinks some water, all with her back to him. He can see the moment she decides to hear him out because her shoulders relax, just the tiniest bit before tensing again.

She turns again and looks him in the eye.

And he has no words.

But she does.

“Don’t apologize again,” she says, and when he’s about to open his mouth and, yeah, probably do exactly that she continues. “And don’t ask for my forgiveness. You did nothing wrong.”

“And yet,” he says.

“And yet,” she repeats, softly, taking her eyes away from his and staring at the air somewhere to the right of his head.

“Will you please listen to me?” he asks, taking a step closer to her and trying not to cringe when she takes a step back.

“No.”

“Melinda-”

“I know what you’ll say,” she smiles, between bitter and fond, and he was never any good at this. He was never good at reading her when she didn’t want him to know what was on her mind.

“You don’t,” he argues, clenching his fist not to reach out and take her hand in his.

“I know you, remember?”

She does. Better than anyone ever has.

“Then why can’t we move past this? Why can’t we start over?”

It was a stupid thing to say, he knew it even before he opened his mouth but he’s grasping at straws here, and there has to be something, anything, he can say to fix the unfixable.

“Because,” she starts and then she moves forward, so much closer to him than she’s been since before everything went down. “It’s not you who needs to apologize, Phil.”

He frowns, obvious lack of comprehension clouding his features. If there’s anything in the world he’ll regret it’s ever hurting her, and he’ll do anything in the world to repair the damage his actions caused. Anything but let her blame herself.

“Melinda, no.”

“How long, Phil? How long did we dance around each other? Saying someday, maybe, and hiding behind… how much time did we lose?”

“We can fix that.”

“We can’t. Because it’s not us. _We_ are not the problem. _I_ am.”

He reaches for her then, can’t stand to have her right there and not have her in his arms.

“The minute I was gone. The minute I wasn’t in the way of us-”

“No.”

She won’t look at him. She hasn’t looked at him since she first started talking and he’s desperate to see her eyes again.

“Please,” he begs.

“You’re not the problem Phil, you’ve never been the problem.”

And she believes it. He knows she does. If there’s one thing she is good at is taking responsibility, even when it’s not even remotely hers.

“You’re not a problem,” he tells her, surprised at how steady his voice is. “You’ve never been a problem. You’re, Melinda, you’re the solution, you’re the end result, you’re everything.”

She shakes her head, and he pulls her against his chest. She doesn’t resist, her body fits perfectly against his.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

She wraps her hands around his waist and he feels her body relax.

“We can’t change what happened, but we can go forward. Melinda, don’t pull away from me.”

She doesn’t.


End file.
